Spirit Cloth

Early may sunset

Nothing like sunset through cloth.
Nice day.

Black beans direct

Just black beans on linen gauze.  wrapped between two layers of cloth on a tin can.  Copper pot with an old sludge of onion skins and  oak twigs.  I was thinking if I had less soaking water and more beans I would get a darker blue when it dawned on me what if  I just used the beans directly on the cloth.  The cold soak didn't do much ( probably didn't wait long enough) but the hot soak, being that I actually needed to build a fire in the studio last night, it worked.  Fast.  One hour in the pot.  Left to cure overnight.   Color is deep, dark.   blue dots.  For now anyway.  That was fun.  Good.  I was in a really bad mood.  These were random.  Maybe some arranging is in order.

Beans are often tied in cloth to create resist.  Maybe we can redefine that. 

Maybe about Earth

 

I'm not sure I have said a lot about this cloth, although it has been in process for quite a while.   I stitch on it once in a while.  I did a little more.  Maybe for Earth day.   It uses a lot of the browns I dyed last year.  It has the feel of earth to me.  Some kind of natural order.  With a little bit of the unexpected.
I think I will leave most of the empty space. 

 

Give the earth a rest.

 

Cloth and beans

So I am still filling in the wing span.  I should be done with  the darker/ blue side later today.  Yes, it takes a long time to hand stitch all these pieces to the surface.  But I have stopped focusing on how long it takes.  I am enjoying it.  Because really, so much has been done in the last days.  It feels like a Cloth. 

Sort of a Blue- Grey day here. Inside and outside.  A batch of veggie burgers was a weekend priority.  And an opportunity for some black bean dyeing.  I soaked  cotton, linen and silk scrap.  Varying lengths of time. 1-3 days.  Soy milk mordant.  A piece of copper pipe toward the end.   Nice color really, and so nice to use the waste water.  Maybe I will sew up a little dye sampler and leave it to fade.  Or not.  The best is to witness for oneself.   I guess you can get a bluer blue with alum.  But this is fine.  I will play a bit with the next batch of  beans needed here.   And try some wool.  

I think the Cloth will go up on the wall later today for inspection and a new point of view.

Thoughts on patches

and thank you Nat.